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Plants are dangerous. They can turn a normal man insane, or devour him whole. From a tiny seed to a mighty Oak! The Fir! The Larch! The Redwood! The mighty Scots Pine! The plucky little Aspen! Why it makes me want to sing, sing, sing!

Botanists are a special breed of people-- trained to wreak havoc on the world. They have an uncanny ability to spot a Bristlecone Pine at forty kilometers. Training begins early in life with botanists sent to camps in the woods where they learn how to make fire, skin animals, and identify shrubbery. Alike unto gods they come back, having grown from but seeds of men and saplings of youth into mature poles. All cities and some large towns have local cells of botanists. Gallup polls indicate that botanists are seen as the fourth most unproductive members of society, after policemen, firefighters, and teachers, but ahead of librarians. Nameless and mysterious, they do their bidding without fame or recognition, identifying toxic specimens as the the world passes by.

Botany as a study is relatively new. First begun in 1900 under the tutelage of Sigmund 'Furry' Freud identifying specific types of plants as being psychologically inhibiting (The Oedipal Cypress, The Repressed Elm and The Submissive Willow, for example) lead to the idea of identifying all sorts of plants for the reason that one could use their precious resources to take over the world.

By 1910 over 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 plants had been identified when someone had the idea to identify plants by type instead of individuals. This pioneering thinker was Carl Jung, who opposed the Freudian school of botany and placed emphasis on the ability to dream-identify. All sorts of plants, as a consequence, have been identified as existing in dreams but not reality (The Red and Purple Spanking Tree, The Screaming Rose, and The Man-Eating Ivy, for example). Since the 1950's botany has excised itself from the world of psychoanalysis and concentrates solely on the scientific study and identification of plants, and how to use them to harm others.

Plants are divided by dichotomous keys, that is working from one of two options of the most general traits and following one branch working to increasingly specific characteristics. The basic dichotomy woks as such:

Green or Not Green

Green- Tall or Short

Not Green- Brown, Red or Other

Tall- Leaves or Needley-things

Short- Squat or Miniature

Brown or Red- Dead or Alive

Other- Lycophytes or Angiosperms

In this simple way almost anyone can narrow down, using a guide, what sort of tree they're gawking at, or any plant for that matter.

Of course, botanists also look to see which plants can cause the most amount of damage. The Fujita damage scale is measured in seconds it takes to kill a human after plant ingestion. Apple seeds are the most dangerous, and can kill a human in .5 seconds. Broccoli ranks second at .7 seconds. The safest plant is the venus fly trap, which takes over 5 decades (3405888000000000 seconds) to consume a human from the inside. However, each second is more excruciating for the next, as documented by Oprah Winfrey's holiday special.

Recently botanists have been gaining media attention for the role their work plays in contrast to that of lumberjacks. Lumberjacks claim that botanists are harvesting trees for diabolical purposes without leaving the lumberjacks any trees to make gingerbread houses with. This has spawned a branch of Botany called Christianity to aid in the elimination of lumberjacks worldwide through prayer and claims of "salvation".